Report: Supermarket Pharmacy Business in Good Shape

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Arlington, Va. The supermarket pharmacy business is healthy and growing in both services and tie-in opportunities, according to a new report from the Food Marketing Institute (FMI).

The study, "Supermarket Pharmacy Trends 2008" reports that key benchmarks are up significantly from 2002 to 2007, including median number of prescriptions filled per day, median percentage of prescription sales from generic drugs, median percentage of prescription sales to total store sales, and median of the gross margin for the pharmacy department.

Additionally, the study found that 92.7% of supermarket pharmacies will be ready for "e-prescribing" by the end of the year.

"What is most significant [about the report] is that in today’s volatile marketplace, whether it is competition from other retail-pharmacy providers, mail-order providers, or competition to keep the overall health-care costs down, supermarket pharmacies continue to post strong and steady performance figures," said Cathy Polley, FMI’s VP of pharmacy services.